marysgardens

I like painting from different perspectives, each one more abstract than the last.

First, I draw or paint a scene in some detail, doing pencil sketches, or painting while working with values, shadow, color, choice of detail.  At some point, I stop.

Then I may do a second painting using pens or brushes and focus on the overarching theme, letting imagination do the rest.  

Finally, I shape these ideas into a single thought and paint something that is closer to a symbol, like a hieroglyphic.

This is my usual approach to art, and it feels like I am having a discussion with the painting while doing so.  If I ever come back to a place that I have painted, it feels so familiar and welcoming to be back.

In the examples below,  fascinated by the arches of trees over the walkways of South East Portland,  I walked through a place that I chose to paint.   At this location, it felt as though the trees were communicating, whispering, as they arched over the walkway.  

It is one thing to capture the detail, and another to capture the feeling.  

Photo taken by MJChamie.

This thought resulted in a Haiku poem and watercolor that I painted. It says,  “Silence abounds here. I feel its cover and stop. It whispers with me.”

Setting the tone and level of detail in any painting is part technique and part personal judgement. I like the struggle of figuring this out, while knowing it is clear that there is no exact right or wrong to this.

I like the drips and drabs that occur on the sides of paintings, before they are cleaned up and framed.  The side patterns suggest the artists’ level of enthusiasm.  They also show the timing of the oil’s placement on the canvas through the layers of paint left dripping over the sides.  For example, the artist may have done the paint mixing on the canvas itself using various brushes and strokes, rather than through mixing oils beforehand and placing the color on to the canvas.  These differences would be more clearly seen on the unfinished sides.

The sides of canvases may be more influenced by gravity rather than brush strokes and are essentially happy accidents of the artist, capriciously highlighting the color palette.  The drips and drabs of  along the sides may also complement that painting itself, acting as a frame.

Below is a mixed media painting on canvas on display at the New York Historical Society. When I saw this painting by Karen Schwartz, I stopped to appreciate her work, and then spent additional time looking at the sides, thinking about her wonderful approach to painting this picture of Eleanor Roosevelt.

I particularly like the way the dripping sides of the canvas have framed the oil painting and am glad that the artist did not cover it, or paint over these designs, but rather considered it part of the painting itself.

What do you think?

Source of painting: https://www.nyhistory.org